Movie review: Does Rob Reiner finally have a winner in 'Flipped'?

Thursday

Aug 26, 2010 at 12:01 AMAug 26, 2010 at 3:18 PM

For more than a decade, Rob Reiner's directorial career has been as cold as a cadaver on a morgue slab. His resume has included "Rumor Has It..." "Alex & Emma," "The Story of Us" and "North," films that the public, critics or both found as enjoyable as a prostate exam. Considering his films before this dry spell included "This Is Spinal Tap," "Stand By Me," "When Harry Met Sally," "The Princess Bride" and "Misery," that's quite a comedown.

Bob Tremblay

"Flipped"

Grade: B-

For more than a decade, Rob Reiner's directorial career has been as cold as a cadaver on a morgue slab.

His resume has included "Rumor Has It..." "Alex & Emma," "The Story of Us" and "North," films that the public, critics or both found as enjoyable as a prostate exam. Considering his films before this dry spell included "This Is Spinal Tap," "Stand By Me," "When Harry Met Sally," "The Princess Bride" and "Misery," that's quite a comedown.

While his latest film, "Flipped," doesn't merit membership in that ritzy club, it marks an improvement over his recent fare. Granted, that's not hard to do, but let's be thankful for small gifts. What's frustrating is the movie could have been so much better had Reiner, who also wrote the movie with Andrew Scheinman, avoided missteps of the minefield variety.

Based on the young adult novel by Wendelin Van Draanen, the film, like "Stand By Me," focuses on children coming of age in the recent past. Here, it's the early 1960s. It tells the story of Juli Baker (Madeline Carroll), who develops a serious crush on Bryce Loski (Callan McAuliffe). While she flips for him, he wants nothing to do with her. Each scene alternates in its telling, flipping from Juli's and Bryce's perspectives in voice-overs as their relationship advances from the second to seventh grade. The film does a lot of flipping.

Now, many film critics dislike lengthy narration because it doesn't exactly cater to the cinematic experience. "If I want narration, I'll read a book," they'll say. I'm not in the anti-narrative camp. I'm in the anti-rotten screenplay camp. A good screenplay, whether it's told with voice-overs or not, is what I want.

Reiner and Scheinman have a decent screenplay here, especially as it pertains to the character of Juli, who is portrayed as strong-willed yet passionate. The same can't be said for Bryce, who's as exciting as wet cardboard. You may wonder what Juli sees in him apart from his handsome looks.

To the film's credit, in another flip, Juli eventually gives Callan the ice-cold shoulder just as he's warming up to her. The character disparity isn't helped by the fact that Carroll is such a standout. She's the reason to see this film. She captures the girl's headstrong nature and intelligence without shying away from her sweetness. To cut the Australian-born McAuliffe some slack, the script doesn't do his character any favors.

The film would have been even better off it had kept most of the adults out of it. Their back stories either fall by the wayside or come riddled with cliches. Bryce's father, Steve (Anthony Edwards), is an insufferable jerk who apparently behaves this way because he didn't have the guts to become a musician and regrets the decision. And then that's it.

The conflict in Juli's household, meanwhile, centers around the money being spent by her father, Richard (Aidan Quinn), to take care of his mentally challenged brother, Daniel (Kevin Weisman). The ice cream parlor scene with Richard, Juli and Daniel is cringe-inducing. Daniel acts as more of a plot device than a real human being.

The respective mothers, Patsy Loski (Rebecca De Mornay) and Trina Baker (Penelope Ann Miller), get to play long-suffering wives. Juli's brothers, Mark (Michael Christopher Bolten) and Matt (Shane Harper), want to be musicians and Bryce's older sister, Lynetta (Cody Horn), is boy crazy. The only adult who has any substance to him is Bryce's grandfather, Chet (John Mahoney), who admires Juli for her spunkiness. He also says she reminds her of his late wife, which is kind of creepy if you take it the wrong way.

"Flipped" also spends way too much time on the egg controversy. Juli has hens in the backyard and gives the eggs to Bryce, who kindly accepts them and then promptly throws them out. The reason? His family mentions salmonella and he's also freaked out watching a snake eat an egg. This giving-and-discarding goes on ad nauseum. We get it. Bryce is a dolt.

The movie sets its 1960s tone with great music from the era playing in background snippets. While baby boomers will appreciate the classic tunes, one wonders if the targeted demographic that goes to teen romances will care. The fact that the film avoids any historical references might also annoy the context police.

Despite all these flaws, "Flipped" made a connection with me, probably because I'm a sucker for first love-young love romances. And as a boy who grew up socially clueless in the 1960s, I can relate to Bryce's awkwardness with girls.

So if you have a romantic bent and a forgiving soul, you might also enjoy "Flipped." You just may not flip over it.

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